The present invention relates to conveyor covers for and, more particularly, to an access hood for a conveyor belt.
Conveyors are used for conveying various materials from point A to point B and beyond. Along the way, the conveyor may be at elevations significantly above the supporting surface for a worker interested in accessing the conveyor. Typically, conveyors have covers to prevent said materials from falling off the conveyor or said material from being contaminated from other external substances. As a result, such access is through an openable portion of the cover, typically called a hood or guard.
Currently, opening conveyor hoods require the use of tools. And since this operation may be done at heights, if the required tooling is dropped when attempting to open the hood, the access process can be detrimentally prolonged (and the dropped tools can cause injury to others or damage to machinery). Additionally, tools can scratch the hood and or surrounding cover, thus posing a separate issue, as current covers will rust if scratched. Finally, openable hoods for conveyor covers currently have the tendency to jolt open, thus they can hit the person opening it, further increasing the possibility of losing the associated tools or hardware, such as the hood or guard itself, which can also threaten to injure others or damage surrounding equipment.
As can be seen, there is a need for an access hood for a conveyor cover. The conveyor cover hood embodied in the present invention requires no tools to open, is rust-proof, and opens in a less jolty fashion through cam-sliding action, improving the safety and ease of accessing the conveyor underneath the cover, while maintaining the structural strength of the cover.